The present disclosure is directed to picks for stringed instruments, and particularly to picks designed to be attached to a musician's thumb for use on such instruments as banjos, dobros, mandolins, pedal steels, guitars, etc.
A commonly employed thumb pick is formed of a single continuous loop of metal or stiff plastic to engage the thumb having a projecting pick point intended to contact the strings of an instrument. Examples of such thumb picks are illustrated in U.S. Pat. Nos. 1,787,136 and 5,509,341 as well as in U.S. Design Pat. No. D603,891. A discussion of the shortcomings of such thumb picks appears in connection with FIG. 1 of my earlier U.S. Pat. No. 4,625,616. These picks are designed to maintain their stiffness throughout the life of the pick and consequently cannot be worn for a great length of time since they often exert great pressure in the area of the cuticle of the nail. Since the retention of this type of thumb pick on the thumb requires a constant compression, it must be of an inflexible material. Generally, the pick point is cantilevered from the bottom center of the thumb, although the pick point itself may have a variety of known shapes. This existing type of pick tends to be unidirectional and only stays in its proper location on the thumb when strings are stuck with a downward stroke of the thumb. Should the pick catch on a string or other object while the thumb is moving in an upward motion, the pick can become misaligned and can even come off the thumb entirely.
The thumb pick of my earlier patent is, by contrast, formed from a softer thin malleable planar sheet of material which is deformable out of the plane of the material. The material is soft enough and heat pliable enough to allow the thumb shape and the body temperature to dictate the shape of the pick. The thumb pick includes a string-engaging portion and an integral main body portion that includes three straps that are movable between the substantially planar dormant position and a bowed thumb-receiving position in which the center strap is displaced away from the outer two straps to define a thumb-receiving passageway. The string-engaging portion is positioned to extend transversely to the axis of the thumb and in a plane that is common to that axis. The softer malleable material is more comfortable to wear than the more conventional thumb picks. Advantageously, the pick design permits a musician to stroke the strings on the up-stroke or return stroke without the pick being displaced from the thumb, thereby increasing the number of times the pick can contact a string per stroke of the thumb. The malleable character of the pick material allows the pick to be quickly returned to a flat plane after being removed from the musician's thumb to allow the pick to be stored in a substantially flat condition in a holder, wallet, or pocket, or for use in a flat state as a conventional guitar pick to be held between the thumb and first finger.
Despite the comfort and flexibility provided by my earlier thumb pick, the soft character of the pick point portion was viewed by some string musician's as being undesirable, particularly by those who play instruments having heavier weight strings. Others have sometimes criticized the range of sizes required and the volume of material exposed on the end of the pick opposite the pick point, which sometimes can contact the musician's index finger while playing. There is therefore a need for a thumb pick that includes the comfortable thumb engaging characteristics of my earlier pick while having a more robust pick point that can be used successfully even by those who play instruments having heavier weight strings and avoiding the interference with the musician's index finger.